Alex Saab Plea Deal: Maduro's Money Man Admits Guilt

MIAMI — Alex Saab, the Colombian-born businessman U.S. officials have long described as Nicolas Maduro's money man, pleaded guilty in a Miami federal court on Tuesday to a money laundering conspiracy charge tied to a bribery scheme that drained money from Venezuela's food program. Under the Alex Saab plea deal, the 54-year-old agreed to cooperate fully with federal prosecutors and forfeit $195 million in criminal proceeds, court records show.

Saab entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida. The single count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, but prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the federal guidelines and to seek further reductions if his cooperation proves substantial.

The cooperation pledge matters most for what comes next. Under the arrangement, Saab promised to provide complete and truthful information and testimony whenever federal prosecutors call on him. The plea filing also bars him from shielding any person or entity through false statements or omissions, a clause that paves the way for his eventual testimony against Maduro himself. U.S. officials have long described Saab as Maduro's "bag man," according to the Associated Press, and could ask him to serve as a witness in the former president's Manhattan trial on drug trafficking charges.

Maduro is being held without bail in a Brooklyn jail after U.S. special forces seized him in Caracas in January. He has pleaded not guilty and has claimed immunity from U.S. prosecution because he once led a sovereign country. Legal experts call that argument an uphill battle, in part because Washington has not recognized Maduro as Venezuela's president since 2019. His trial is scheduled for June 1, 2027.

The $195 million food program scheme

The new indictment centers on Venezuela's so-called CLAP program, a Maduro-era initiative set up to deliver rice, corn flour, cooking oil and other staples to poor Venezuelans during a period of rampant hyperinflation and a crumbling currency. Prosecutors said Saab stole millions from the welfare plan intended to feed needy families and transferred some of the proceeds into U.S. bank accounts, according to the Associated Press.

In an eight-page statement of facts submitted with the plea, Saab admitted skimming at least $195 million from at least six contracts awarded to companies he controlled to import food and medicine. The scheme, the filing says, had the approval, participation and protection of some of the Venezuelan government's highest-ranking public authorities, including a person the filing identifies only as "Government Official 1A," according to the statement of facts. That official, according to the filing, designated a surrogate to receive bribe payments on their behalf.

Prosecutors also allege that $17 million in kickbacks went to former Gov. Jose Gregorio Vielma Mora, a Maduro ally who, with the backing of Government Official 1A, secretly awarded a Saab-controlled company a 2016 contract to deliver 10 million boxes of food rations in Tachira state. Vielma Mora was previously charged in the conspiracy in 2021.

To conceal the criminal activity, Saab said he and his associates falsified shipping records and set up a network of shell companies and bank accounts in countries including Antigua, Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands, Montenegro, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. As U.S. sanctions deepened the country's financial woes, the group began receiving payment in the form of Venezuelan oil, gold and other natural resources instead of cash.

A decade-long chase with a presidential pardon in the middle

The United States has been targeting Saab for more than a decade. He was first charged during the first Trump administration in 2019, then arrested in 2020 during a refueling stop in Cape Verde on what the Venezuelan government described as a high-level humanitarian mission to Iran. He was extradited to the United States in 2021 to face money laundering charges tied to an alleged scheme that siphoned $350 million out of Venezuela.

Former President Joe Biden granted Saab clemency in December 2023 as part of a prisoner swap that freed several imprisoned Americans in Venezuela. The deal, part of a failed Biden White House effort to lure Maduro into holding a free presidential election, drew sharp criticism from Republicans and federal law enforcement officials, who immediately began investigating Saab for other alleged crimes not covered by the narrowly tailored pardon.

Saab's standing in Caracas collapsed after Maduro's removal. He had served as industry minister under Maduro, but acting President Delcy Rodriguez removed him from the cabinet in January, shortly after the special forces raid. Saab was detained the following month and extradited to the United States in May. He had initially pleaded not guilty on July 24 before agreeing to change his plea this week, according to Reuters.

In court on Tuesday, Saab told the judge that he takes the antidepressant Zoloft and other medication daily for what he described as post-traumatic stress disorder following his 2020 arrest. U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida attended the proceedings with more than a dozen federal agents, and prosecutors said the case shows that political connections, wealth and proximity to a corrupt regime offer no shield from American justice.

The new prosecution is unfolding as the Trump administration overhauls U.S. relations with Venezuela, with a focus on the country's vast oil reserves. This month, President Donald Trump announced a partnership with Venezuelan oil entrepreneur Alejandro Betancourt that gives the U.S. government a stake and access to at-cost crude from oil fields with a potential of 65 billion barrels, an escalation that sits alongside the broader American pressure campaign in the Caribbean.